sigh

The following is actually a meditation on my own thought processes, though it appears to be talking about movie reviews. I'm fretting about my sanity, perceptions, and taste. These are, hopefully, topics of general philosophical interest.

So, I thought League would totally suck. I was braced for it to be the worst movie ever made.

Then it wasn't, and I was delighted with it! I didn't go so far as to consider it spectacular, but I considered it a lot of fun to go to, enough to see it twice.

The second time I enjoyed it even more, and forgave some things that irritated me the first time, though I also found fresh irritants.

Then other people's appraisals started pouring in, and I hate being so malleable, but I'm coming to the reluctant conclusion that the movie stank and I just convinced myself to like it because it didn't COMPLETELY stink. (See original expectation.)

But then I remember reviewers are idjits and most people are criticizing the movie for the wrong reasons (i.e. Either it was based on a comic book, so it sucks, or I have the comic book memorized and this wasn't it, so it sucks). No offense to anyone criticizing the movie, of course. At least half of my crits are from the comics as well.

But it's really disheartening to see that the MSN averaged scorecard gives it the all-time lowest rating of any of the 15 major releases this summer. Out of six or seven reviews each, three of the other movies had garnered a single D+. League got a D AND a D-.

So either the world's gone mad or I've gagged and restrained my sense of taste out of loyalty for a story I really wanted to enjoy.

Either way, it sucks, and I'm malleable enough to start agreeing with people about it sucking if I hear it often enough, which bugs me.

Why the world hurts so bad, or Boring is not the worst thing.

Sorry, this is long. I'd put it in a cut tag, but I know some people who don't click on cuts but need to read this.

Almost a month ago now (wow, time keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin' into the future), I explained to my counsellor that even when things seem to be going well, sometimes I'll just slip into massive depression. Fact of life. It's why I'm there. It plagues most of my friends to varying degrees. I do manage with medication, which has helped certain facets considerably, but this piece that's left is definitely mind, not brain.

I don't know how to fight it, or work with it, or placate it, or nurture it, or change it in any way. It's just a feeling of great howling void where my sense of self is supposed to be. (The effects are the usual litany: no motivation to work or take care of myself, sense that I have no real friends or meaningful contribution to the world, etc.)

I subscribe to the opinion that we don't keep emotional reactions around unless they do something for us, or at least used to do something for us. But what the hell does this do for me, or has this ever done for me, that could possibly seem like a payoff? In the short term, it feels horrible, and in the long term, it sends my life to hell.

She asked if, as she's been working with me for a year, she could throw out some phrases and I could see if they resonated. Okay.

"Delicious despair."

Okay, ow. That emotion is only supposed to register on angsting teenagers and people who are way too goth for their own good, right? But it FITS. It feels like a relief to hurt. A relief from what?

My twisted little superego thinks suffering is cooler than being boring. Better than being someone who's content with the status quo, because those are the sheep. The little voices in my hindbrain actually think like this. Better to be verging on suicidal depression than be a sheep. Better to take the red pill and live in hell than take the blue pill and eat prime rib.

Bullshit. This is not an either/or.

I told my mom this. She smiled, and asked if I remembered coming to her in tears when I was about eight years old... She asked what was wrong, and I asked, desperately worried, "Am I normal?"

She assured me that I would never be normal, and I calmed down.

It may bruise my ego to feel mundane, but yo, hindbrain, get a clue, the agony I am putting my life through is not worth it. And the posers are worse than the mundanes by far, so using misery as a fashion statement is not a winning strategy.